Marisol Fila
The magazine O Menelick 2Ato is an Afro-Brazilian digital and print magazine published since 2007 in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. O Menelick 2Ato aims to contextualize and reflect on the history and the roots of the Afro-Brazilian cultural identity and its connections to the black diaspora in the Americas, focusing on the visual arts. Since 2018, O Menelick 2Ato has been developing projects in partnership with the University of Michigan, and the magazine is part of the UM Library collection. The project “O Menelick 2Ato: Art, Culture and Society From the Perspective of Alternative Contemporary Brazilian Black Press” aims to build on this collaboration by a series of events that will take in the months of February and March 2020. In the public talk “Black Art, Politics and Visibility: “Printed” Challenges for the Black Community in Brazil and the US in Times of Totalitarianism” Luciane Ramos Silva and Nabor Jr, editors of the magazine, will discuss historical and current relations between Brazilian and American black presses. By discussing the dominant aesthetic and poetic regimes of representation, Luciane and Nabor will propose the black arts as a fundamental channel of critical engagement in contexts of social and political cleavage. The launch of the 21st issue of the magazine and of a curated edition in English will take place on February 26th, 2020 at the UM Hatcher Library. The release of the new issue, including a panel discussion with the magazine’s editors and UM faculty, will be followed by the opening of the digital and print exhibit “O Menelick 2Ato. Making Black Press in 21st Century Brazil”. The exhibit, on display until March 11th at the Hatcher Graduate Library, will feature selected magazine’s covers by Afro-Brazilian and Afro-Diasporic artists.
Library Mentor: Barbara Alvarez